An amazing article (2 parts)...

Scottss1888 · Jan 15, 2008

Fantastic Article and a truly absorbing read...Just one minor problem...i didnt know any Celtic fans bought the Sunday Mason!!!

pauloantony said: ↑

A further £260 million came in the form of a direct loan from the Royal Bank of Scotland, and when you examine it, even the interest on that is enough to give you a nosebleed. Let’s assume, for example, that they get a good rate, say 3% annually. The interest on a 3% loan for that astronomical figure is, itself, nearly £8 million. To cover even this, let alone repaying the debt itself, which would see annual repayments of millions more, the exact figure depending on the length of the loan, which one would imagine they’d want to be short, they would need to sell every available seat, and every new season ticket sold would need to cost more than £400.

Arsenal offset much of this loan with a bond scheme.

From what I can make of it, the venture is a high-risk one, involving the club issuing these bonds at a much lower rate than the commercial banks. They are the first football club ever to try this kind of thing, and if it goes wrong the implications are all too easy to imagine. That kind of disaster, of course, is much easier to recover from if you have a Russian billionaire at the helm. Without one, and with no other means to repay such a mountainous debt, it is hard to imagine a commercial bank loaning Rangers this kind of cash. The risks are breathtakingly high.

How high? When Arsenal Chief Executive Keith Edelman briefed the press in May 2006 the club’s debts were already standing at some £260 million, and were expected to grow to some £385 million during the following year. Only Premiership TV money, and virtually assured Champions League football, year on year, makes sustaining even the interest payments on such an appalling debt even near viable.

As I said, a billionaire owner also helps, but Rangers don’t have one of those. Instead they have a steel tycoon whose other companies appear to be swimming in enough red ink as it is.

The rest of Arsenal’s money came from a more obvious source, and it is closed off to Rangers entirely. They obtained the rest from the sale of the Highbury site, and some surrounding land. Rangers have no such capability, as the frontage of the ground itself is Listed, which is why the talk is of a redevelopment rather than relocation. In short, the land can’t be sold to a commercial bidder.

This too is being spun, of course. Rangers won’t “break with tradition” by demolishing the stand on Edmiston Drive.

Taking all this into account, even the Emirates figure, of £460 million, seems to be far beyond Rangers fundraising capabilities and New Ibrox would cost £240 million more than that.

The RBS loan to Arsenal covered over half the overall cost. For this to be the case with Rangers the loan would have to be £90 million higher than the one the London club received ………… and at even the most conservative, at £350 million, would leave them in a red zone out of Scottish football club territory and into Third World proportions.

The next time Gordon Brown held talks on debt cancellation he’d have to include Rangers in the relief package.

In short, this scheme would involve Murray himself having to mortgage almost every other business he owned, or the fans would need to buy an awful lot of new bricks.

According to the wisdom of the journalist there is another way, of course. All of this could be paid for in the inevitable increase in the capacity of the stadium. The very idea is lunacy. Let’s, for just a moment, give them the benefit of the doubt. Lets say they raised £500 million of the cash from other sources ………… which, if they managed it, would put them up there with Lourdes as a source of miracles. (A comparison I have made just to wind them up.)

£200 million, from increased season ticket sales. That number can be attained in a mere 10 years ……………if the price of the average ticket for the new seats was in the £1000 bracket. More conservatively, giving them the benefit of the doubt again, if we use the number I did earlier, the one needed to repay the annual bank interest, £400, it would take almost a quarter of a century. During that whole time the attendance would need to stay steady throughout.

Think about that. 70,000 highly priced season tickets. In the SPL. At a time when they would barely have a transfer fund.

This scenario, which one would presume would be nearer the best case than the worst case in terms of overall funding, seems impossible when one crunches the numbers.

Which brings me to another point; the present financial state of the club, as evidenced by Murray’s failure to hand the last three coaches decent money for transfer fees. Had Rangers been in possession of the kind of financial might this project would suggest, surely some of it would have been spent on their playing squad? Would they really have spent the last two seasons without a trophy when they could have been putting together their own Galacticos?

David Murray has allowed Smith to spend money, of course, but by his own admission, in the man’s own words, this is a one-off. Last year they made a huge loss. This year, with Smith’s spending having failed to get them to the knockout stages in the Champions League, and with direct entry to that competition going to the league winners next year, and we all know that’s us, the figures in the future will be enough to turn anyone pale.

If we conclude from this that Rangers can’t make any of this happen, and I don’t see how we can draw any other conclusion, we need to ask what the purpose of all this spinning is.

Firstly, let me say something about the paper itself. It took me a mere three hours to put this together, or to pull the story apart if you like. This, frankly, should embarrass the Sunday Mail’s editor, as well as the journalist involved, who obviously made no effort to verify a word of this nonsense. Again we must draw our own conclusions, but I can see only two possible explanations, and neither seem good: this bunch either swallow, verbatim, every single word Murray says to them, without question, which makes you glad he’s not a government spokesman at the Home Office (a wee dig there at Mr Reid, in case you missed it!) or they are lazy incompetents, unworthy of either their pay cheques or the profession they discredit.

In politics, spin happens either to hide an unpalatable series of events or facts, or it is used when things in the public domain need gloss to make them look good. Reagan’s guys knew it well. When they found themselves with no concrete plans to build on, they instead used the public’s perception of their candidate to make the election about him, rather than a set of policies to lead the nation forward.

So it is here. In the absence of a concrete plan for Rangers the spin is creating the appearance of one. Again, the man’s own words bear this out. For the last few years he’s been looking for a way to get rid of the club. Would he be doing so if these plans were viable, if there was any sort of long term vision left in him?

Besides this, the very notion that Murray is a man with a long-term vision was smashed last year when he sacked Paul Le Guen, an event which has, itself, been spun into a victory of sorts. When Le Guen was hired it was to be the beginning of a new plan for the club, but a year on they have replaced him with a coach they fired a decade ago. The dressing room culture of the eighties has taken over, as revealed by Daniel Cousin. The board has not grown, and the man at the helm has retained his iron grip.

Celtic, in the meantime, have hired Gregory DuPont, one of Europe’s premier league coaches, with the results already evident in the play of young Aiden McGeady. The very idea such a man would permit, for a second, fast food in the dressing room is laughable, and yet two of our tabloids smashed Cousin’s claims, one actually going as far as to say his comments show a total lack of “present coaching techniques” where, it seems, there is a growing understanding as to the benefits of players eating pizza to regain energy levels. These techniques must be peculiar to the south side of Glasgow, as I have found no evidence that they are used anywhere else in Europe.

Our boardroom experience continues to grow. Like him or loathe him, there can be few more well known, more experienced, people in the land than John Reid. Another recent event of interest is the story of The Man From G.A.P., which adds a further layer to this tale.

Just before Christmas, the papers ran stories about John Fisher’s investment in Celtic. As the fourth richest man in America, it seemed like an unusual step for him to take. However, the stories made it clear that he’d long been seeking an investment opportunity in British football. What was surprising, and not a little hilarious, was that he had considered Rangers first …………… and decided against it.

The Sunday Mail, in another example where they clearly took the word of Murray as gospel, ran the story like all the other papers, but with one difference. They claimed Murray had turned him down, but gave no reasons why. If such a thing were true, not that it is, we would be forgiven for remembering a time when Celtic’s board did the very same thing, to a wee Canadian guy in a bunnet, and a year or so on were almost closed down by the bank.

It appears suicidal for a cash-strapped club to turn down cash on the hip. Should we now surmise, based on the latest stories, that Murray and Rangers do not need the money? Are they minted? Do they have £700 million sitting in the bank?

The fact is, Fisher chose to invest in Celtic instead of Rangers, in spite of Murray’s best efforts to secure his cash, and every paper bar the Mail took the position that one would logically assume; in choosing to invest in our club rather than theirs, he was making a clear statement as to who he views as the best long term bet. His position as a multi-billionaire lends enormous weight to that view, and his credibility is unimpeachable. His decision would certainly have been very different had Rangers been on the verge of such a mammoth fiscal moonbeam as has been suggested here.

The Man from G.A.P. is part of the reason this story has surfaced when it has. It is a major humiliation for Murray and Rangers that such a man has publicly snubbed his club in favour of Celtic. Their obvious briefing to the Mail to the tune Murray rejected the cash is a gesture equivalent to throwing the toys out the pram. They are not the actions of a strong man, but the childish acting out of a deeply hurt, deeply embarrassed, ego-maniac, thwarted in his aims, whose rivals have reaped the benefit of his hubris.

Two other reasons scream out at us from the self same paper, one of them on the very front page which announces the whole charade. Underneath the headline is another, stating that we have just secured the long term future of Artur Boruc.

At a time when they appear to be accepting bids on their good players, we are nailing ours down, in a statement of intent which even Murray cannot ignore.

On the back page is the first Scottish media interview with Andreas Hinkel, our first new signing in the transfer window.

Rangers have yet to spend, and despite much media hype that they will, Walter Smith himself has said very little business will be done. Indeed, as we know, their one big story so far is that they accepted an alleged bid for Scotland’s own White Cafu. If such a bid has, indeed, been made, and they accepted it, only for the player to knock back the move, it is hard to imagine them being happy at his decision, one which in fiduciary terms makes the impact of Bobo Balde’s decision to stay at Celtic last year look like small change.

(Of course, Hutton’s decision is being touted as egalitarian, and love of the jersey, whilst Bobo’s has been condemned as the act of a player lacking ambition, and contact to leech money from us.)

That story, incidentally, has been spun so much we might never know the truth, certainly not whilst the Scottish press ignores much of it to focus on the benefits to Rangers of either outcome.

And what are the facts, as we know them?

First, we have Rangers accepting a bid, and Smith confirming this. Then we have Hutton rejecting the move, and Rangers expressing joy, and saying they never wanted to lose him. Then the Spurs manager flatly denies making a move, and a day later Smith himself appears to confirm this when in total contradiction of everything he has said prior, he declares no moves have been made for any of his first team players. Who’s telling the truth? Is this policy on the hoof, in true Reagan government style, where each department is pursuing a little agenda of its own? Are the two club chairman doing this deal on their own, without consulting the coaches, or is it simply more smoke?

What we can say with certainty is that Rangers fans, who know the club has immediate issues needing resolved, are unlikely to accept the closure of this transfer window if it leaves their squad unchanged or weakened, as appears entirely possible.

The one thing which might appease them is if there are big things happening to ensure a better future. A £700 million project to finally resolve their inferiority complex over our stadium’s larger capacity is just the tonic most Rangers fans need, and when it comes with the ringing endorsement of the press, who could dig and demolish it all, but won’t, some will swallow it.

The smoke will blow, their attention will be diverted, their eyes will look forward …………… and the window will slam shut. New Ibrox, and hanging onto a player they accepted a transfer bid for, will be offered as evidence of a bright future, of how forward thinking they are and of how everything will work out for the best.

Will their fans fall for it? I don’t know, but I never underestimate the gullibility of the Rangers supporters. Some of them seem determined to prove that Catholic Schools Are Better. The Peepel, who sing royalist and loyalist anthems, celebrate the Great in Britain and yet make * salutes, are not going to swell the numbers of Scottish MENSA, and so enough of them may just buy into this nonsense to give Murray a little bit of breathing space.

Murray is hurting right now. His club has not won a trophy for two years, and soon we will be taking our rightful place with the elite of European football in the Champions League whilst his own club settles for the consolation of being knocked out of the UEFA Cup. The plans for the Commonwealth Games will revitalise the East End, all of it on the public slate, increasing Celtic’s position in the process. Our long term strategy continues to bear fruit. Over at Ibrox they continue to make policy on the hoof.

When Reagan’s second term ended, Walter Mondale, the Democrat he had roundly thrashed in 1984, might have allowed himself a wry smile at the scandal swirling around his one-time rival. He would have been foolish to give in to the urge.

In the end, what beat Mondale was not so much the smokescreen designed by Reagan’s brilliant campaign team as it was Mondale’s own weaknesses in exploiting the gaping holes which were nevertheless on display. Either he never saw those holes or did not know to use them to good effect. It makes no difference to the outcome.

The Sunday Mail has played its own role brilliantly. Dazzled by the lights, distracted by the smoke, or perhaps just toeing the party line, what they’ve done is printed transparent fiction as fact. This is what you do when the truth is too terrible to face.

The fact is, friends, that our future is secure whilst theirs by no means is as certain. Spin hides the truth and diverts your eyes, but only if you let it. Look past the smoke at the facts.

Fight the media’s fiction with the truth.

Things are not what they’d like us to believe, fellow Troops in the Hoops. We must do what the press has failed to do in this case, and expose the lies for what they are. Based on the facts we have at hand. Judging by those, Morning in Govan it certainly is not.

In truth, it’s closer to midnight.

Keep the Faith.

The Future’s Bright. It’s Still Green & White.
Click to expand...

Ham&Jam · Jan 15, 2008

Bloomin heck did you have to quote it again!

Jungle Bhoy · Jan 15, 2008

Ham&Jam said: ↑

Bloomin heck did you have to quote it again!
Click to expand...

was about to say the exact same :icon_mrgreen:

Jeannie · Jan 15, 2008

lmaooooooooooo

FMG · Jan 15, 2008

Crackin read but did i miss something with this guy Fisher investing in us? Can anybody enlighten me?

Jungle Bhoy · Jan 15, 2008

FMG said: ↑

Crackin read but did i miss something with this guy Fisher investing in us? Can anybody enlighten me?
Click to expand...

http://www.talkceltic.net/forum/cel...or-son-gap-clothing.html?highlight=fisher+gap

FMG · Jan 15, 2008

Cheers Andy. Good news and opens up more possiblities in US market and for more money men.

An amazing article (2 parts)...

Scottss1888

Ham&Jam

Jungle Bhoy

Jeannie Gold Member Gold Member

FMG

Jungle Bhoy

FMG